


Reinversée

by laughingmistress



Category: Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Other, Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 19:07:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20179237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingmistress/pseuds/laughingmistress
Summary: It shouldn't be hard to get a blush from Jean Prouvaire. What works isn't quite what was planned.A short bit of silliness for Poetry Smash week 2019





	Reinversée

Bahorel was not, as a rule, the sort of man to be over concerned about going “too far”. Rather, he feared the opposite, and took it upon himself to live without regret, and gallop forward joyfully into any endeavour. Always better to go too far, than not far enough. None could ever accuse him of faint heartedness. The only thing he did half-heartedly was study his law, and that was simply because he had chosen to detest that particular _bête noire _with every ounce of his being. It was more fun that way.

If he wanted a fight, he would start one. If he wanted a song, he would sing. If he wanted an egg, there would be feathers flying from one end of the henhouse to the other until he emerged triumphant, and were it Lent, well, the pope could go whistle—Bahorel was a man capable of getting what he wanted, when he wanted it.

What he wanted was to make Jean Prouvaire blush. Not that they didn’t do so with a startling frequency—it wasn’t a rare occurrence to see the little poet pinking like a maiden while reading some folio or other. But Bahorel wanted to see them blush for _him_, and so far it had been difficult going. He didn’t get blushes, he got knowing, direct looks from cool, blue, still–as-a-pool eyes.

It was nearly enough to make Bahorel believe he was losing his touch.

Tonight though, he was employing a new strategem. He had committed words to paper. He was going to recite.

The room was full of the very worst sort of Romantics, which is to say the sort that cared very much about poetry, and very little about clothing. Bahorel was rather the opposite sort, himself—he did not carry a quill-pen, but he did wear a prodigious moustache. He adored a bold waistcoat, and would not be caught dead in a doublet. Although—he glanced out of the corner of his eyes—the medieval look seemed to suit Prouvaire, much as he was loathe to admit it.

Prouvaire sat next to him, leaned slightly forward in rapt attention. The fellow who was speaking presently was doing a good enough job of it, Bahorel supposed. Although some of his sonnet sounded dreadfully familiar. He thought it might be borrowing more than would strictly count as simply homage to Monsieur Shakespeare at this point, and was skating perilously close to complete plagiarism. But then, Shakespeare had written in English, and this was French, and he was long dead anyhow, so perhaps it wasn’t quite so frowned upon? When the man finished, to a smattering of polite applause, Jean Prouvaire began craning their neck about, to see who would be next to take the floor.

Bahorel gave a low chuckle; Prouvaire looked at him. “You needn’t twist your neck. It’s me.”

Prouvaire blinked. “You?” Bahorel nodded, pushing his chair out from the table, and taking a long drink from his glass. “But--you don’t write.”

“That you know of.” He stood, straightening his waistcoat, and cleared his throat.

He knew it was a bad poem. It was distinctly lacking in subtlety—a quality which was not among his strengths anyway. But it was bold, and passionate. And rather suggestive. And all in all, he rather thought Prouvaire might enjoy an ode to their not inconsiderable charms, however trite and badly scanned. He did not take his eyes off of them as he began, expecting with each word ventured to finally watch the slow creep of pink across those fair and freckled cheeks.

Prouvaire did not look away. They did not blush either, although Bahorel was suspiciously certain that he saw the beginning of a small smirk, a wrinkling at the corner of their eyes. He turned up the charm, hoping the roses might bloom as he came into the section of rhyming couplets. Which was, instead, the point where someone at the very next table hissed rather disparagingly, and suggested none-too-quietly he sit back down and spare them all.

Jean Prouvaire went straight past the hoped for rosy blush. They flushed scarlet, turned, and punched the man squarely in the face, laying him flat out over his table, and spilling a bottle of wine.

~

“I feel rather strangely about this, “ Bahorel said later, as he examined Prouvaire’s bruised and swollen knuckles, rather enjoying the excuse to play with their long graceful fingers. "Normally it should be I who..."

Prouvaire glanced at him from beneath ginger eyelashes, with a small quiet smile. “Ah well. You surely knew I had the potential. And I had to defend your honour. Although…darling, perhaps poetry is not…?” They trailed off.

Bahorel chuckled. “Oh, I know. But you should fight more. It was such a _pretty _punch.”

Jehan blushed.

Bahorel still had it.

**Author's Note:**

> I never used to ship this. But y'all have sold me on it. And Bahorel is such fun to write.
> 
> I cranked this out in a single free evening, and I have no idea if it even makes sense anymore, but I hope you enjoy it.


End file.
